“Five Nights at Freddy’s”
2/5 **
“Five Nights at Freddy’s,” directed by Emma Tammi, is a 2023 film based on the horror game of the same name. The goal of the game is to survive five nights as a security guard at an abandoned pizzeria without getting caught by the animatronics that come to life. The basic plot of the movie is similar to that of the game. Mike (Josh Hutcherson) works five nights at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, and each night the shifts become increasingly horrifying. As someone who has never played the game, while this was an interesting watch, the movie was not for me.
The core plot is Mike trying to keep a job so that he can keep custody of his younger sister, Abby (Piper Rubio). Mike is also haunted by the fact that he was unable to prevent his younger brother, Garrett, from being taken and is trying to search that memory to find the kidnapper throughout the film. Mike also slowly learns about the dark past of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria; how a bunch of children went missing there but were never found.
The story overall in my opinion is very cheesy and overwhelming. Mike has a lot going on in his life, and while it is fine for characters to have that much happening, it does not work for this movie. Mike’s main arc is to let go of his brother and focus on Abby, but it is disjointed because Mike already cares a lot for Abby. Despite thinking he is not the best caretaker, he does work to keep custody of her because the alternative would be that she stays with their aunt, who doesn’t care about Abby at all. Throughout the movie I was assuming that he was so protective of Abby because he was trying to make up for what happened to Garrett. At no point did I assume Mike cared more about getting justice and closure for Garrett more than taking care of Abby.
The big twist at the end is also extremely predictable. At the end, it is revealed that the owner of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, Steve Raglan (Matthew Lillard), whose real name is William Afton, murdered the children who went missing and stuffed their bodies in the animatronics. The reason the animatronics come to life is because they are being haunted by the ghosts of those kids. Not only that, but it was also revealed that Afton kidnapped Garrett, too. I saw that twist coming as soon as it was revealed that Mike’s brother was kidnapped, so Mike’s unraveling of the mystery was not satisfying.
Additionally, Vanessa’s character annoyed me a lot. Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) is a police officer who becomes friends with Mike as the film goes on. She clearly has a connection to the pizzeria and throughout the movie she drops hints about its dark past, but no straight answer. When the climax happens and all is revealed, including that Afton is her father, Mike gets angry at her for not outright warning him. She does not give a clear explanation as to why she doesn’t tell Mike what is going on. She also knows what her father did, which begs the question: why didn’t she just arrest her father?
Overall, I was not a big fan of this movie. The plot was very predictable for me, and it resulted in me not being engaged at all. Vanessa’s character motivations made no sense, which made her a very annoying character. I liked Mike and Abby as characters, but whenever they were being threatened by the animatronics, I didn’t care since I knew they were going to make it out okay.
I love horror movies and despite never playing the game, I felt like the premise was fun and scary. My expectations were not high, but I was expecting to at least have some fun. Instead, I was the whole time. This might be a fun movie to watch inebriated with close friends, but it’s not fun to watch sober.